My daughter wants a cell phone and she is in 6th grade, is this too early?

When deciding about cell phone usage in your household you first have to figure out what are your top priorities...

Safety You should decide if you feel your child will be safer with a cell phone or not. Perhaps store several important numbers, including emergency numbers as well as family and emergency contacts. I would recommend advising your child about not giving this number out to strangers and being careful about usage. If the child is very young, perhaps allow the phone to be used only in case of emergency. A phone could also be very useful if your son or daughter is at school and needs to contact you about a change in plans, after-school activities, if they missed the bus home and need a ride or just to keep in touch with you.

Cost It's very easy for a cell phone to be over-used and have outrageously expensive bills. Check with your cell phone company first about parental controls on a phone for your child.  Also talk with your child about the importance of not abusing a cell phone.  Discuss consequences for using the phone too much.

Texting Most kids text and enjoy it as a way to communicate with their friends. Often parents report that they have better communication with their child by texting with them too. Some parent have found texting to be a problem as their kids start doing it too much or have it start growing to be a third arm, inseparable from their bodies! Before texting gets to be a problem, try to head off the issue by setting boundaries first.  For example, no texting at the dinner table or when spending family time together. Also if you have the typical "$5 plan" for a limited amount of text messages, make sure your child is aware of it the limit and set consequences for going over this limit.  Make sure they know how to key in the code specific to your phone carrier to check how many text messages they've already used.  If text messaging gets out of hand, there is always the option of turning off text messaging all together on just one of your family phone lines, then no texts can be sent or received.

Balance A cell phone will pretty much be inevitable at some point down the road, but as the parent you have the right to decide when.  Figure out a good game plan before saying "yes" to a phone and stick to it.  You can always adapt later.  Giving your child a bit of responsibility for their actions is a good way to show your child that you trust them, but that you also expect them to abide to the consequences of their actions.